After modeling my collection, they were excited to bring something they had collected or would like to start collecting. Having their own collection gave them additional control over their opinions and writing, resulting in student empowerment and greater engagement during this lesson sequence. Listening to their explanations in informal and formal writing conferences and pushing them to provide more detail has helped my students improve verbal communication and have greater transference to print. After the featured lesson, my students used the photograph of their collection taken with the class iPads, as a graphic to present their written opinion. Students asked questions of their peers who were not in their group and gave specific positive feedback to the students they presented. As an extension of this lesson sequence, my students learned about Georgia O'Keefe and selected a painting from her flower collections, in conjunction with our plant unit, and wrote their opinion of the painting giving three reasons for their opinion. Having already written opinion pieces about their collections, students struggled less to provide detailed explanations for their opinions about the collections